Your thoughts on a new special rule, NWF...

[Hammers]

I just got Ospreys OOP booklet on the NWF and it opens with a very telling (at least for semi-pulp purposes) poem by Kipling:

When you're wounded and left on
Afghanistan's plains,
And the women come out to cut up
what remains,
Just roll to your rifle and blow out your
brains
An' go to your Gawd like a soldier.

I am hoping to use this as a foundation for a special rule and troop type, in a NWF scenario.
I am thinking that the Pathan force may include a group of women armed with nothing more than knives (rocks?). The British/Indian force may not use ranged weapons nor charge the women. The women may however charge the British/Indians who may then fight back. The stats of the Pathan women should, of course be low on all characteristics and may not include a leader nor hero in their midst.

Doable?

[Plynkes]

"And now the women of the village are cutting his bollocks off!"

I wouldn't have thought that type of thing happened in the middle of a battle, but to poor unfortunate stragglers that got left behind or surprised on patrol, or the wounded left lying around when a British force had been wiped out or nearly wiped out.

[Aaron]

I agree, from everything I have read they hid out until the fighting was over. Then they came out to "finish off" any wounded and loot the dead. It would be appropriate to work the effects into a campaign system, but I think it is stretching it a bit too far to include them in the tabletop action.

[Driscoles]

Saturday at the TST I will play NortH West Frontier with T+T rules.
Pictures will follow.
I know this popem too and I thought of a rescue mission ...
Björn

[Poliorketes]

An easy rule would be not to allow the last survivor of a unit joining an other but remove him as casualty.

[Hammers]

Well, that's an idea of mine completely shot out of the water! :-)

From my perspective it would be humorous to have a rabble of crone miniatures meandering across the table and feebly trying to intervene with the British.

[Plynkes]

I really don't see them attacking armed units British soldiers with stones, but if you are prepared to keep track of British casualties and put them on the table with casualty figures then it might be a way to include them.

You could have British medics having to check casualties to see if they're dead or not, and getting wounded back to aid stations. If the battle moves on and the Brits get far away enough from their casualty figures, maybe the women could come out of the woodwork to do their nasty business.

Would certainly give the Brit player something to think about, having to recover his wounded before something nasty happens to them.

Stargrunt has some good ways of simulating casualties, treating them, and the consequences on morale of abandoning them, that you could steal.

[Poliorketes]

If it's for the minis, just use them for suppression markers on the brits.

[Aaron]

Plynkes has a good idea there. You could streamline it by having units leave markers behind for every wounded man if you don't have casualty figures. The womenfolk could score points for every marker they capture, representing the killing, mutilating, and looting of the wounded. They should be forbidden from attacking armed troops, but should be fair targets for "civilized" troops once they have been caught attacking wounded.

It might be better saved for special rearguard scenario rules. It has tremendous "flavour" appeal.

[Rhoderic]

Might I ask, do you have any particular miniatures in mind for Pathan women?

[Hammers]

Well, I have a couple of crone types laying about. WW gypsy women for instance. Eureka has a few in burkhas (a Tesco one made famous y Plynkes)... I don't know, burkhas seem to be more of a Arabian peninsula

[Plynkes]

They do have Burkas in Afghanistan, but they tend to be full-face blue ones.





They have gone in and out of fashion over the years. Had died out quite a bit until the Taliban turned up and started bossing people about, but are common again now. No idea if they were in vogue in the 1870s-90s or not, though.

[commissarmoody]

Yeah from what I reimber, the gypsy  mins would actualy do better then the burka kind for the era, pretty much watch the move "the beast" about a russian tank crew that gets lost in the mountens if you want some more ideas.

[Hammers]

Yeah from what I reimber, the gypsy  mins would actualy do better then the burka kind for the era, pretty much watch the move "the beast" about a russian tank crew that gets lost in the mountens if you want some more ideas.

That's what I was thinking.

[oxiana]

The Kipling poem is called 'The Young British Soldier'. You can also Google the wonderful 'Arithmetic on the Frontier', which contains the lines:

A scrimmage in a Border Station—
       A canter down some dark defile—
Two thousand pounds of education
       Drops to a ten-rupee jezail—
The Crammer's boast, the Squadron's pride,
Shot like a rabbit in a ride!

As to burqas (or whichever spelling you prefer), this was rarely worn in the past. Given its current associations, it's ironic that it was actually a sign of rich, urbanised women: its impracticality was a sign that the wearer was free from the toil of the fields. Village women would only don burqas to visit towns, where they would be free from the gaze of unrelated men. and that only if they could afford them - they're actually quite expensive items of clothing due to the amount of material and high degree of embroidery.

During the anti-Soviet war, burqas were adopted more by refugees in tented camps in Pakistan, due to the difficulties of keeping the private (female dominated) and public (male) spheres separate, and enforcement by the the fundamentalist mujaheddin groups. When civil war broke out, the burqa became essential as a guarantee of anonymity and protection against harassment and rape. The Taliban merely formalised the wearing of the burqa.

Incidentally, blue is the more favoured colour in places like Kabul today but in the north you see white burqas a lot, and in the south and eastern Pashtun areas there are lots of browns and mustard colours. But in rural Afghanistan it's still common to see women not wearing burqas. And even during the Taliban time, the nomads refused to completely veil their women.

The ideal mini would be a woman wearing a long shirt or dress over skirts and pantaloons, with a shawl over  the head. Reds and blacks would be the preferred colours.

Finally - I'm sure I've gone on enough here - if you're looking for something else to inspire game-wise, remember the example of Malalai. At the battle of Maiwand against the British in 1880, the Afghans were on course for a defeat until the young bride Malalai appeared to inspire the men by removing her veil and waving it as a banner with the accompanying verse: 'My love! If you do not fall in the battle of Maiwand / Someone is saving you as a symbol of shame!'. Of course, the British went on to suffer a famous beating - and Malalai is still a national heroine to this day. The Taliban must hate her...